And so here we are.

 I am largely abandoning Facebook because it's a toxic place full of echo chambers, right and left --but mainly the Left.  Seriously, threatening to kick someone off your Friends list for disagreeing with you when the only people who follow you are people who think like you?   Useless virtue signals!  

Remember when people used to talk about boycotting Walmart and buying locally?  Yeah, it's like that.

I would paraphrase Thoreau to explain myself:

Unjust systems exist: shall we be content to use them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and use them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a system as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the system itself and those who benefit from it that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse....

Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the system which I condemn.

For some odd reason, Milton's words draw me in today

Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat
That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he 
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from him is best
Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail 
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. 
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: 
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.

--Satan, "Paradise Lost" by J. Milton, Book I

Oh, we can read many things into this today, many things.   

Peace is a Miracle, and a continuing plague upon their respective houses

Peace is a Miracle:

 

Nihilism is what is killing our democracy. The leftists who toppled statutes believe, because they are taught to believe, that the people the statues depict – the people who founded our country – hated them. And thus that the country itself hates them. The Trump supporters who invaded the Capitol believe – because the people in that very building told them – that the people in that building, who run this country today, hate them. A country cannot have peace while its government tells its people the country hates them. Yet our government has managed to tell both halves of its divided nation that they are hated. If there were a Darwin Award for governments, the American political establishment would be tough to beat. 

There's a lot to digest here.  As a historian, I can indeed think back to the Election of 1800, the "magnificent catastrophe" described by Edward Larson  where James Monroe threatened to send the Virginia militia to prorogue the Federalist Congress (I guess Gov. Northrup DID have a precedent). I can think back as well to "Tilden or Blood" being spoken after the 1876 campaign, and several Northern governors threatening to mobilize their own militias in support of their preferred candidate.  I can think about 1960, where Nixon was urged to push vote fraud claims in Texas and Illinois (the former, at any rate, probably traceable to allies of "Landslide Lyndon").  2000 comes to mind with Bush v. Gore and the beginnings of the marginalization of non-majoritarian voices (or, "the year Democrats realized they could be hurt by third parties, too!" [Search terms "Ralph Nader Florida 2000"]).  And then OMG ROOSKIES! and 2016 (which we are starting to conclude was, yes, largely fabricated).  

But this is different.  Two people died this week.  The Capitol was breached.  And that was wrong and those responsible should be punished.  So moted be.

Remember, however, that a "tu quoque" argument may be a form of ad hominem attack, but it can be useful otherwise in illustrating hypocrisy.  And therein lies the animus of my plague-upon-the-houses: while I cannot support Trump, the rank two-facedness of many who oppose him prevents me from actively working with them.  I've seen your endgame, I want no part of it.  The revolution always eats its own, and the Montagnards always come for the Girondists.

Well, I DID say I was moving away from Facebook...

Somehow I don't see this year as an issue in terms of people still writing "2020" on their checks.  NO ONE wants 2020 to last any longer than necessary, no matter how inadvertent.

Facebook is toxic.  Yes yes yes, it does allow me to talk to a lot of people all at the same time, including folks I haven't seen in years.  But there's too much What Ain't Right over there.  I will not be feeding the beast any more than absolutely necessary.

I'm not sure how this is going to proceed.  I do have this blog, which has been hiding in the background for years now.  I have a presence on Parler, but not many folks have jumped there yet.  Maybe MeWe, or one of the others?  I don't know.  At least the blog format allows me to do funky things with text and formatting.  It may well be that I post weekly summaries on Facebook all the same.

I may be a bit less "guarded" here.  But that's part of the point.  The ability to speak is the ability to be free.  No amount of weasel words to the contrary will change that.  

Besides, when "They" tell you you're wrong, how often it is really not to "Their" benefit?  Seldom are corrections offered that hurt the ones offering them.  And always remember: it's generally only a single paradigm shift that can cause a designation change from "expert" to "idiot."

Weekend Update: Roseanne Roseannadanna on Smoking - SNL

Fast forward to 3:23 or so for the theme for today.

Bleeding Kansas 2.0

 

Californians prepare to descend on Georgia to fight for Democrats in Senate races --San Francisco Chronicle, 11/16/2020

California Democrats are peppering political organizers with questions about how to travel to Georgia to volunteer for Democrat Jon Ossoff in his race against Republican Sen. David Perdue and for the Rev. Raphael Warnock in his contest against GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Both seats went to a Jan. 5 runoff when no candidate won a majority in this month’s elections.

*blink* We've seen this before.  Kansas, 1855, the Border War.  I wonder who's going to be John Brown this time around?  (NB the article does not discuss what others are postulating, that people are being recruited to establish Georgia residency specifically to vote in this election.) 

No Pearland today.

My major challenge right now is to find a good east-west route that allows for significant distance without running into super-heavy traffic.  Nice paved shoulders are highly desirable, as is the absence of unchained dogs.  I ran out of both today east of FM521.  I guess until the overpass on McHard/FM2234 is completed (with access road), I will not be visiting Pearland.

Reactivation?

 There is now a non-zero chance that I may be abandoning Facebook and other major social media in 2021.  I am therefore resurrecting this blog as a back-stop.

Meh, I still check this once in a blue moon.

I know, I know, blogging is so passée!  But I do still keep this around, just in case I decide that I have had enough of Facebook.  Mind you, if I decide that Google is totally evil, I'm going to make the switch over to WordPress...

Gardenzilla - Rampaging Kaiju Garden Gnome | DudeIWantThat.com

Gardenzilla - Rampaging Kaiju Garden Gnome | DudeIWantThat.com:

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Dude I Want That > Outdoors > Garden Posted: Sunday, June 01, 2014

By: Erin Carstens

Gardenzilla - Rampaging Kaiju Garden Gnome

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ADDITIONAL IMAGES

Praying mantises and ladybugs are heralded for their ability to rid gardens of many common pests, but in my experience they're utterly useless when it comes to eradicating the front yard of smug, chubby, razor-phobic gnomes. I've tried these organic solutions. And I've also tried pesticides. I've tried tossing the gnomes out, I've tried drop-kicking them down the street, I've even tried playing a game of Gnome Whack-a-Mole with a sledgehammer. Somehow, they always come back, bellies and smirks bigger than ever. Until. Now.

The Rampaging Kaiju, or as any proud owner will come to know him, Gardenzilla, has arrived to wreak ha

Help Tom.

This man's name is Tom Mathieu. He is the father of a friend of mine. And a badly-trained San Antonio PD cop almost ended his life in January for being in a diabetic state on the side of the road. Help him.

Diabetic man badly beaten by SAPD

Study Reveals Drinking More Coffee Reduces Diabetes Risk

Study Reveals Drinking More Coffee Reduces Diabetes Risk:

There is nothing happier than a coffee drinker with his first cup in the morning. But coffee has a historic reputation of being blamed for many ills, from stunting growth to causing heart disease and cancer. 

Over the last 20 years, medical research debunked any connection between coffee and an increased risk of cancer or heart disease. Most studies found coffee consumption was associated with increased life expectancy. New research from Harvard University Department of Nutrition published in Diabetologia, Journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, reveals coffee may be curative. Increasing coffee consumption by one and half cups per day, 12 fluid ounces, over a four year period actually reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes by 11%.

Dr. Frank Hu and Dr. Shilpa Bhupathiraju of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard University examined the associations between four-year changes in coffee and tea consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes in the subsequent four years. The researchers used observational data from three large prospective, US-based studies in their analysis: the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) that followed female nurses aged 30-55 years between 1986-2006, the NHS II that followed younger female nurses aged 25-42 years between 1991-2007, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study that followed male healthcare professionals 40-75 years between 1986-2006. Each of these studies detailed information on diet, lifestyle, medical conditions, and other chronic diseases was collected every two to four years for over twenty years.

The availability of these repeated measures and the long duration of followup allowed the authors to evaluate four-year changes in coffee and tea intake in relation to risk of type 2 diabetes in each of the following four year segments. Researchers examined whether the association with diabetes incidence differed between changes in caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee. Diet was assessed every four years using a food frequency questionnaire. Self-reported incident type 2 diabetes cases were validated by supplementary questionnaires. The final analysis included over 95,000 women and almost 28,000 men.

The authors documented 7,269 incident type 2 diabetes cases. They found that participants who increased their coffee consumption by more than one cup/day, median change = 1.69 cups/day, over a four-year period, had a 11% lower risk of type 2 diabetes in the subsequent four years compared to those who made no changes in consumption. Participants who decreased their coffee intake by one cup a day or more, median change = -2 cups/day, had a 17% higher risk for type 2 diabetes.

Those with highest coffee consumption and who maintained that consumption -- referred to as “high-stable consumers” since they consumed three cups or more per day -- had the lowest risk of type 2 diabetes, 37% lower than the “low-stable consumers” who consumed one cup or less per day.

While baseline decaffeinated coffee consumption was associated with a lower type 2 diabetes risk, the changes in decaffeinated coffee consumption did not change this risk.

The researchers determined: “In these three large prospective cohorts with more than 1.6 million person-years of followup, we observed that increasing coffee, but not tea, intake over a four-year period was associated with a lower type 2 diabetes risk in the next four years. Decreasing coffee intake was associated with a higher type 2 diabetes risk. These changes in risk were observed for caffeinated, but not decaffeinated coffee, and were independent of initial coffee consumption and four-year changes in other dietary and lifestyle factors.”

They add: “Changes in coffee consumption habits appear to affect diabetes risk in a relatively short amount of time. Our findings confirm that higher coffee consumption is associated with a lower type 2 diabetes risks and provides novel evidence that changes in coffee consumption habits are related to diabetes risk.”

So the next time you want to hold that personal fireplace in your hand and smell the aroma of a good cup of Joe, get a bigger cup to increase your happiness and health!

***

The author welcomes feedback and will respond to comments by readers.

Yes, I'm still here!

I've mainly switched to Facebook and Twitter, but I do maintain this place in the event I need to post very long pieces.

Penn State, the NCAA and the future of collegiate sports

NCAA boss won't rule out death penalty for Penn St - Houston Chronicle:" In a PBS interview Monday night, NCAA President Mark Emmert said he doesn't want to "take anything off the table" if the NCAA determines penalties against Penn State are warranted."

Whoa.

That this is even being voiced by the NCAA is a signal that, behind the scenes, some serious players are deeply unhappy with what Penn State has done for college football. And with good reason. Raise your hand if you think that Jerry Sandusky was the only pedophile ever involved in college athletics. I thought so. There are Forces Beyond Reckoning that see the potential disaster for all collegiate sports if something isn't done. JoePa's death did not close the book on the situation; the latest revelations have made sure of that. Otherwise, supporters could with a straight face say, "Who are you kidding?! These charges drove JoePa to his grave, isn't that enough!?"

Forces Beyond Reckoning see millions of dollars at stake. Forces Beyond Reckoning are willing to sacrifice a college and a conference to save the entire eco-system. Yes, it would kill Penn State's program as surely as it killed SMU's, and yes, it would probably put a serious dent in the Big Whatever --at least until they bit the bullet and gave Notre Dame what it wants in terms of revenue sharing. But to do nothing would to be invite worse things later on. More scandals. Lawsuits. The legislature! Falling ratings!!!

The NCAA is going to crucify Penn State. They have no choice: if they don't consider this a "lack of institutional control" then they lose all legitimacy. And there is the vicious rub. Because the NCAA is about as far from a legitimate body as you can get. Never mind all that money that somehow built Cam Newton's daddy's church, and never mind how long they knew about Reggie Bush's family's perks before doing something about it, nothing truly bad happened to Auburn or to USC. And we can go back further without any real stretching.

And the truly sad thing is that this could have been the opportunity for a big-time school to say, "Screw you, NCAA! We're withdrawing and forming a new league and taking the big boys with us and now we won't have to play Twister-on-Acid to abide by the rules!" But under these circumstances, that cannot happen. To the contrary, by going for the death penalty here, the NCAA will make itself look stronger and even more legitimate in the eyes of the public.

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